Here's stunning new data on sex in America: 34% of singles have had
sex before their first date, according to an annual Singles in America
survey funded by Match Dating Service.

And millennials are 48% more likely to have had sex before a first date
than all other generations of singles.

USA Today quotes Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist, the chief
scientific advisor of Match, who helped develop the survey of 5,000+
singles. "We have a real misunderstanding of millennials. I think they
are very career-oriented, so sex before the first date could be a sex
interview so they want to know if they want to spend time with this
person."

Dating and hookup apps make it easier than ever to hop in bed. Kimberly
Resnick Anderson, a certified sex therapist, says "We used to think of
sex as you cross the line now you are in an intimate zone. But now sex
is almost a given and it's not the intimate part. The intimate part is
getting to know someone and going on a date."

After reading the data, Jeremy Helligar wrote an article for the
Huffington Post, "Why I Prefer To Have Sex on (or Before) the First
Date." She says, "I know as many couples in solid long-term
relationships that began as hook-ups as I do couples who went the
slow-courting route.

"In my own experience, dates tend to go much more smoothly once we've
confirmed our physical connection. Then we're free to make an emotional
one without that big old pachyderm tracking mud all over our romantic
settings."

To me, that's pure rationalization. If the goal is marriage, millennials
are failing miserably. Some 93% of Americans say that "having a happy
marriage" is a very important goal. One study of high school seniors
reported that their number one aspiration was "having a good marriage
and family life." Only 8% of women want to remain single.

However, the number of never-married Americans nearly quintupled from
8.7 million in 1970 vs. 41.3 million never-married in 2015.

In fact, there were only 2,077,000 marriages in 2015 - fewer than the
2,159,000 in 1970! In those years, the U.S. population grew from 203
million to 319 million in 2015. If the same percentage of couples
married in 2015 as in 1970, there would have been 1.3 million more
marriages annually - 65% more marriages!

The millennials having sex before their first date, or on their first
date - are headed for failure. Most likely, they will not marry. But if
they do, they'll be more likely to divorce. In fact, America's divorce
rate after 5 years of marriage is triple that of Britain or France - 23%
vs. 8% in those countries.

Sex before dating is upside down nonsense. My wife and I have prepared
61 couples for marriage, 51 of whom were sexually active when we met
them. But we asked them to consider signing an "Optional Premarital
Sexual Covenant" to become chaste until the wedding.

Guess how many of the 51 signed the Covenant! Write down a number before
I tell you. First, however, I'll note that only one of our 61 couples
have divorced that we know of.

Surely Scripture is clear. "It is God's will that you should be
sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immortality; that each of you
should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and
honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God."
(I Thess. 4:3-4).

Of the 51 sexually active couples, 43 signed the Covenant. And the one
divorce of couples we prepared for marriage refused to agree to it.

Chastity before marriage allows the couple time to really get to know
one another' soul, their deepest commitments to God and to one another.

In our home church in the 1990s, we trained dozens of Mentor Couples,
who had been married two to four decades, to come alongside 288
premarital couples to prepare them for marriage. In addition to the
Sexual Covenant, one tool they used to help couples discern their
suitability for one another was the PREPARE-ENRICH premarital inventory.
It asked the man and woman whether they agreed or disagreed with 150
statements like these:

Sometimes I am concerned about my partner's temper.

Sometimes I wish my partner were more careful about spending money.

Of the 288 couples, 58 decided NOT to marry. But of the 230 who tied the
knot, we
know of only 19 divorces in two decades.

Premarital chastity was an important builder of a lifelong marriage.

___________________________________Copyright (c) 2017 Michael J. McManus,
President of Marriage Savers and a syndicated columnist. For previous
columns go to
www.ethicsandreligion.org. Hit
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